by Amy Vansant
Funny way to sit a coffin, upended, no matter how fancy it might be.
He shifted and the dolly beneath him slid away, dumping him on the cold floor. He worked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, recognizing the familiar taste of whiskey combined what felt like a sheep’s hide.
Light glowed from outside a pair of windows and he stood to shuffle over and investigate, every movement aching his muscles. His mind was a fog.
The light outside didn’t shine from a full moon, but from a powerful candle sitting high on a stick. The moon-on-a-stick revealed a row of plain square buildings, as if he was in a village—though no village he’d ever seen.
Everything was so strange.
I must be in France.
Wincing, he stretched his back and felt a pain grab near his hip. He unbelted and dropped his kilt to reveal a long cut, deep but not dire, situated above his hip bone. The dried blood on the wound pulled at his flesh when he moved. Licking his fingers, he rubbed at it before noticing an indentation in the wall.
A door.
At least it appeared to be a door. Instead of a latch the door had a silver metal orb stuck to the front of it where a latch might be. He wrapped his fingers around it and pulled, pushed and turned. Turning felt most right; it gave, but ultimately thwarted him.
Locked.
He took a step back and braced himself to run his shoulder at it. Squaring, his gaze floated upward and he noticed a window over the door. He cocked his head to the side and considered this.
Best take a peek before I pound my way into a fight.
Jumping, he caught the sill and pulled himself up to peer through the window.
A girl on a bed.
She didn’t appear dangerous. She wore only a short, tight shift, her bare legs spread akimbo as if she’d been dropped there from a great height. From what he could see, she was bonny indeed. Dark hair framed high cheekbones and a straight, dainty nose. Her lips were plump with a hint of pink color. Beneath her shift he could see the curve of her—
He dropped to the ground and ran a hand through his hair. He felt flush.
Had he been with the girl and then locked himself out somehow?
No. Surely I’d remember such a strange place…and such a beautiful girl.
He raised his hand to knock and then reconsidered. She’d appeared peaceful. Maybe better to get a lay of the land.
He noticed a note on the ground in front of the door. He picked it up and held it near the window to read it.
Some of the words didn’t make sense. He had no idea what an MMA fighter was, though it worried him that she felt the need to declare her affiliation to that clan so soon. From what he could piece together, the girl didn’t want him coming in her room and she was a known killer in the possession of a firearm.
He grinned. He couldn’t remember much, but she felt like his kind of lassie.
Looking down, his amusement faded.
Hm.
Maybe I should put my clothes back on before she comes out here and shoots me dead.
Taking a stride toward his discarded kilt, the room swam before his eyes.
“Keep the heid,” he muttered, a phrase he often used to calm himself. He’d been told it was his father’s favorite saying, though the man died when he was only a wee thing.
Throwing out a hand he hoped to use a wall to steady himself, but found no wall within reach. He stumbled toward the sofa as his mind went black.
Chapter Four
At the sound of the bang! she sat straight up in bed and shot her hand under the pillow to find her gun. Holding her breath, she listened for the source of the rude awakening.
When you slept on a Hollywood studio lot it wasn’t unusual to hear strange sounds in the middle of the night. Carousing actors, dinosaur roars, laser fights, screeching demons; she’d heard it all. A bang was pretty ho hum. But something about this bang—
Thud! Thudududud...
There it was again.
Someone’s in my apartment.
Catriona retrieved the Glock G29 from beneath her pillow. She caught a glimpse of her plaid scarf draped over the chair and the sight of it tickled something in the back of her brain.
What is it about that scarf—
Oh.
Right.
She wasn’t alone.
The memory of the kilted drunk slipped into place, completing her puzzle. She’d left him snoring on the dolly in the living room. He must have awoken and, judging by the subtle bouncy noise following the last thud, was rooting through her kitchen cabinets in search of something to feed his hangover. He wasn’t slamming the doors, but he wasn’t easing them either.
She slipped out of bed and crept towards her door. Resting her ear against it, she listened for movement.
Nothing.
Maybe he’d left? She unlocked the door as quietly as she could and cracked it open.
The figure of a muscular man, drawn in early morning shadow, stood six feet from the threshold to her room.
He took a step forward.
“Hold it right there,” she said, revealing her gun.
He stopped parallel with one of the three windows in her apartment. The ambient light glowing from the lot’s security lamps revealed her houseguest as naked, his hand covering his naughty bits. Shadows cast by the pronounced ridges of his body stretched across his skin like fingers. If it weren’t for the golden hue of his flesh, she would have thought someone had mis-delivered a marble statue from one of the ancient Greece sets.
All this guy needs is a fig leaf.
Catriona remained still, struck dumbfounded by the unusual standoff. The stranger hadn’t broken in—she’d rolled him in—but she didn’t know anything about him and it proved unsettling to have such a large, shaggy, naked creature loose in her living room.
Stranger still, the man’s dark, shoulder-length hair blew away from his face, as if he were standing atop a Scottish bluff on the cover of a romance novel.
She squinted, confused. Did the musclebound hunk-a-drunk travel with his own breeze? Did he wake up and decide to film a music video in her living room?
A noise somewhere between a hum and roar crept into her consciousness. Cocking her head, she tilted her gaze to the window. The buzz played steadily outside.
“Step back, Kilty,” she barked.
He followed her command.
“More.”
Catriona moved into the room and leaned forward to peek through her open window.
Outside, men gathered around a giant wind machine, which was pointed directly into her face. She felt her own hair fly backwards.
“Hey! Joey! You’re pointing that right at me!”
The men looked up.
“Sorry Catriona,” called Joey, twisting the fan to point away. “Wanted to test it before we took it all the way to sixty-five.”
“No prob—Whoop!”
An arm hooked her waist, jerking her from the window and lifting her off the ground as if she weighed no more than an oversized teddy bear. Strong fingers clamped around the wrist that held her gun.
“Ye were gonnae shoot an unarmed man?” said a voice in her ear, low and heavy with Scottish brogue. She could still smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Was I going to shoot an unarmed naked man roaming my home? If he gave me cause, yes. Maybe I was. I don’t think a jury of my peers would—”
“Whit? Whit are ye babbling aboot?”
As he spoke, Catriona stiffened the fingers on her free hand and thrust back, poking the four longest into his throat as she twirled from his grasp. He coughed but still stripped the gun from her grip as she moved.
Counting on being armed at this point, she froze, facing him. He held her pistol in one hand, pointed at her, his other hand still covering his own built-in gun with the other.
In the growing sunlight, she saw his body was glistening with sweat. She could feel her t-shirt sticking to her back, wet from being pressed against his chest.
“Easy
—” She said, holding up her palms.
“Eh?” He looked at the gun and grunted before lowering it as if both tired and disgusted. “Ah wullnae shoot ye.”
His pupils took a lap in his skull before returning. He shook his head as if to clear it. She ceased worrying that he’d shoot her from malice and grew concerned he’d take her for an enemy during a fever dream.
“Why are you so sweaty? Do you have a fever? The flu?”
“A dinna ken.”
“What?”
“Eh?”
The pistol slid from his hand and clattered to the floor and she balled her arms against her chest, wincing, worried it would fire. The Scotsman giggled, his legs wobbling.
“Do you even know where you are?” He remained closer to the gun than she did, and she didn’t think diving for it was the best call...yet. Better to keep him talking.
The Highlander snapped his attention to her as if surprised to find he wasn’t alone. His expression shifted to one of confidence, bordering on bravado, but his eyes telegraphed that a very different song played in his head. She guessed he was moments from passing out. Working for the studio, she’d seen that look plenty of times.
Time to take it slow and direct.
“Look, buddy, all I have to do is scream and you’ll never work in this business again. Maybe you think you’re being method, but how about you put your clothes back on and maybe I’ll let you keep your job.”
“Is that any way tae treat me after our time th’gither?”
He squeezed his eyes tight and she thought it might be a good time to run for help, but his comment gave her pause.
Did he say “our time together?”
“What are you talking about? I found you passed out on the set. Our time together consisted of me hauling you up here like luggage.”
He wiped his sweaty brow with the hand not covering him. “We dinnae share ye kip?”
She followed his gaze toward her bedroom. “My bed? Are you asking me if we slept together?”
“Aye. Ah guessed ye a hooer from yer clothes.” He waved a hand at the oversized t-shirt that doubled as her nightgown.
Catriona huffed. “Did you just call me a whore?”
She was about to verbally eviscerate the brute when he blanched, shifting from golden tan to sickly beige in a matter of seconds. Her anger deviated to the type of concern she’d feel for any wounded animal.
“Hey. Take it easy, big guy.”
He offered her a lopsided grin, revealing a laugh line deep enough to audition for the role of dimple. He opened his mouth as if to say something, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground in a great naked heap.
Scottish Elvis has left the building.
She tilted back her head and sighed, realizing that once again she would need to move him.
“Why does he keep doing this to me?”
Chapter Five
“I can see why you called me,” said Dr. Noseeum studying the man curled on Catriona’s floor.
The good doctor’s real name was Peter Roseum, but everyone at the studio called him “Dr. No-see-um” because he knew how to keep his mouth shut. A discreet doctor was the number one tool tucked in a studio fixer’s tool belt. From overdoses to botched beauty attempts, Dr. Noseeum had seen it all and repeated none of it. He could fix almost anything, short of bad facelifts. For bad plastic surgery, Catriona sent the star on a private sabbatical far from the prying eyes of the paparazzi, until the actor’s eyebrows emerged from his or her hairline like a bunny peeping from the underbrush.
“Just to be clear, this isn’t what it looks like,” said Catriona.
“No? That’s too bad. I thought global warming had finally reached you, ice princess.”
She knew she had a reputation for being less than cuddly, but didn’t appreciate being teased about it. She curled her lip. “Let it go.”
Noseeum chuckled. “So, back to our muscle-bound friend here. Part of me wants to ask why he’s curled in the fetal position, but then, I assume all the men in your life end up this way.”
“That’s just how he collapsed, smart ass. Just fix him so I can get him out of my apartment, will you?”
“Uh huh. You say you found him drunk?”
“Yes. I mean, I assume so. He smelled like Boston on St. Patrick’s day.”
Noseeum stood and put his hands on his hips. “Well, the only thing I’m sure of is that this is more than a hangover. He’s burning up. We need to get him to a hospital.”
Catriona groaned. “Can’t you just work your magic on him? Give him a pill or something?”
“I have no information. No starting point. To hazard a guess could cost the man his life. Usually when you bring me these cases I at least know it’s an overdose or that they’ve been shoving army men into enemy territory—”
“Oh jeeze, don’t remind me. I still can’t figure out how that guy got that plastic tank…nevermind.” Catriona crossed her arms against her chest and allowed her chin to fall to her chest.
This is what I get for being nice. She practiced a strict policy of staying as uninvolved with the actors’ lives as possible, and now she’d been forcibly restrained by a naked man who had the indecency to collapse on her floor. If an ambulance came to the lot it would invoke a nightmare of reporters, questions, and—once it was revealed what happened—tittering behind her back for weeks.
“So you’re sure covering him with a blanket and hoping for the best is a bad idea?”
Noseeum nodded.
“Fine. I’ll take him to the hospital. First, we have to dress him. Roaming the lot with a sweaty, naked man could inspire rumors.”
“You think?”
“Help me move him.”
“Help you move him? My whole body weighs the same as his bicep.”
She eyeballed the doc. Her friend Dr. Pete was a bird-boned blond standing shy of five-foot-eight-inches tall. Adorable, like a puppy, but not great for moving furniture or large naked men.
She pointed her index finger at him and swirled it in a circle. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your whole body situation. Could you start working out or something? You’d be a lot handier in these situations if you weren’t built like a fifteen-year-old girl.”
“Sure. I’ll hop right on that.”
Catriona closed her eyes and roamed through a mental inventory of the nearest buildings. When she reached Stage Thirty-Two, her lids sprang open.
“Ooh. I know. Go grab me one of those roadie cases. I think there are a bunch of empties on Stage Thirty-two. They’re shooting some rocker thing there. I’ll dress him, roll him down stairs on the dolly and then we’ll pop him in the case and take him to my car.”
“When exactly did I become your errand boy? I have a medical degree you know.”
She clapped him on the back. “From Antiqua. When you graduate from Harvard get back to me. Now go get the case before I take you off the payroll.”
With a final disgruntled grumble, Noseeum left to fetch the case.
Catriona took a deep breath.
First thing first.
She found what she thought was the man’s kilt on the sofa, but in gathering it, found it to be more blanket than article of clothing.
She looked from the man to the blanket and back again several times, at a loss for how to continue. She found a crude belt, but it didn’t seem to be the key to working the ensemble.
“I could have sworn you were wearing this.”
What to do? She didn’t have anything he could wear…
She grinned as an idea popped into her head.
Catriona stood in the still-closed employment office beneath her apartment with the stranger curled on the dolly. Dr. Noseeum appeared, pushing a large black road case.
He grimaced. “What is he wearing?”
“My fuzzy robe.”
“It’s pink.”
“Indeed.”
“Does he not own clothes?”
“What he
was wearing turned into a blanket overnight. It was either this or roll him up like a plaid burrito.”
Noseeum stared at her a moment as if poised to say something, before shrugging and leaning to help her hoist the unconscious man into the case. They shut it and rolled it to her Jeep Cherokee. First tilting the box against the opened back of the truck, they slid it inside with a symphony of grunting.
“Do you think he can breathe in there?” she asked, gazing at the box.
“Long enough to get him to the hospital and plot his revenge. Do I have to come with you?”
Catriona shut the back of the truck and clapped her hands together. “Nope. I’m just going to dump him out of the case, tell them I found him and leave him.”
“Perfect. If he’s dead when you get there remember: I haven’t seen you all day. Ciao.”
Noseeum disappeared through the gates and Catriona hopped into the driver’s seat. She pulled the door to shut it, only to have it resist her attempt. It took her a moment to realize a man held the door open; his one hand on the doorframe, the other holding a gun pointed at her face. He had a strange lump protruding from the center of his forehead, as if he’d tried to grow a unicorn horn and failed.
“Move over,” he said, motioning with the barrel of the gun. His accent told her he was a native of the Southeastern United States.
Catriona closed her eyes, picturing where she’d left her Glock back at the apartment. Her memory was excellent, but only worked in pictures. If someone told her to meet him on Wednesday, she didn’t see the word Wednesday—she pictured a block of seven squares, like a calendar row, the center of which she could feel was Wednesday. If she later tried to remember the day of the meeting, the image would reappear and she could feel the meeting on that center block.
Unfortunately, her particular sort of memory didn’t always remind her to grab her gun before wrapping a naked man in a fuzzy robe and rolling him out of her apartment on a dolly. She could picture it sitting on her counter and knew the barrel pointed towards the refrigerator—for what that was worth.
